Need Help Finding BIOS Flash

[BobH]

Can anyone point me to a link to find the BIOS flash for my HP 530 Notebook PC?

Setup system information say that the BIOS version is F.07. To my knowledge the BIOS has never been flashed. I have a desktop PC that is Ethernet connected to get online but I cannot find information that I am certain belongs to my system. I've not done many BIOS flashes and don't want to risk making things worse due to lack of caution.

Many thanks for all the support given here. You are a great group and wonderful resource.

[John Gray]

It looks to me from this webpage that F.07 (18 Mar 2008) is the latest and last BIOS...

(Is 3 minutes fast enough for you?!)

[BobH]

Thank you very much, John (aka, "Speedy").

[Bigaldoc]

I know that the old "if it ain't broke..." adage isn't quite appropriate where BIOS is concerned, but I've always made it a point NOT to flash unless there's either something wrong with the operation of the computer, OR even if not, if the BIOS manufacturer's notes tell something about recent fixes that might cause trouble.

I've only had it happen ONCE (thank Heaven!) but an error in flashing "can" be destructive and often impossible to recover from. Having said that, I admit that I haven't done one for 6-8 years and the routines may have been made more safe for average users. Strangely enough, the last flash I did was on a Linksys router of all things.

Just be careful when you do it. Sorry, I don't mean to sound like a lecturer...

[BobH]

You are a wise man and offer great counsel, Big Al.

Despite all my precautions, I bricked the laptop with the flash attempt. I would not have tried the flash except as a last resort. The bad news is that I bricked it. The good news is that my go to repair guy, Mike knew tat it had what he called a double BIOS. With a few restarts - and appropriate incantations - he was able to get it back to a boot prompt. I left it with him to reinstall XP and get the wifi field, something I should have done weeks ago.

[viking33]

You are a wise man and offer great counsel, Big Al.

Despite all my precautions, I bricked the laptop with the flash attempt. I would not have tried the flash except as a last resort. The bad news is that I bricked it. The good news is that my go to repair guy, Mike knew tat it had what he called a double BIOS. With a few restarts - and appropriate incantations - he was able to get it back to a boot prompt. I left it with him to reinstall XP and get the wifi field, something I should have done weeks ago.

The dual BIOS is indeed a great safeguard. I have it on my machine and although I haven't had to take advantage of it, It's good to know it's there.
I'm a bit surprised at the Flash problem. I thought today's Flash programs were installed on a CD/DVD/floppy and the first thing it did was to create a back-up copy of the BIOS on the external disk, in case there was a problem, so you could fall back to the back-up in case of disaster?

[BobH]

You are a wise man and offer great counsel, Big Al.

Despite all my precautions, I bricked the laptop with the flash attempt. I would not have tried the flash except as a last resort. The bad news is that I bricked it. The good news is that my go to repair guy, Mike knew tat it had what he called a double BIOS. With a few restarts - and appropriate incantations - he was able to get it back to a boot prompt. I left it with him to reinstall XP and get the wifi field, something I should have done weeks ago.

The dual BIOS is indeed a great safeguard. I have it on my machine and although I haven't had to take advantage of it, It's good to know it's there.
I'm a bit surprised at the Flash problem. I thought today's Flash programs were installed on a CD/DVD/floppy and the first thing it did was to create a back-up copy of the BIOS on the external disk, in case there was a problem, so you could fall back to the back-up in case of disaster?

I too was surprised by the experience. It might well be my inexperience; however, because the downloaded .exe did offer choices for creating a floppy, a CD or a USB thumb drive. I formatted a thumb drive and checked to be sure that setup options would check it first for booting. The problem is that the proper files didn't seem to be on the thumb drive despite indications that the .exe completed satisfactorily. I checked the thumb drive on a different PC and found files written on it by the .exe but have no way of knowing what the file problem was.